The government has confirmed it will introduce a cap on ‘low-value’ degrees that it believes are ripping off students and taxpayers.
It will also introduce new plans to make it easier for companies to offer apprenticeships, introducing a new digital platform for students and employers to find courses, and reducing the number of steps required to employ an apprentice.
The announcements form part of the Department for Education’s response to the recommendations made in the Augar review of higher education. The review was commissioned by Theresa May in 2018 when she was prime minister.
Under the plans, the Office for Students (OfS) will be asked to limit the number of students universities can recruit onto courses that are failing to deliver good outcomes for students.
Courses with poor outcomes “have high drop-out rates, don’t lead to good jobs and leave young people with poor pay and high debts”, according to the DfE.
Skills development
The government said it will cut the number of steps required for an employer to hire an apprentice by a third, as well as update around 100 apprenticeships in sectors such as construction and healthcare so they reflect the latest technical advances.
It will also reduce the maximum fee universities can charge for foundation year courses – an additional year of study designed to prepare students for degrees that require specific knowledge or skills – from £9,250 to £5,760. It argues that too many courses are offering foundation years where they are not necessary, such as in business.
The DfE cited figures from the OfS showing that almost three in 10 graduates do not progress into highly skilled jobs or further study 15 months after graduation. It also refers to Institute for Fiscal Studies research suggesting one in five graduates would be better off financially if they had not gone to university.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak said that studying for a degree can be “immensely rewarding” but that students were being sold a “false dream”.
“That is why we are taking action to crack down on rip-off university courses while boosting skills training and apprenticeships provision,” he said.
“This will help more young people to choose the path that is right to help them reach their potential and grow our economy.”
Education secretary Gillian Keegan added: “Students and taxpayers rightly expect value for money and a good return on the significant financial investment they make in higher education.
“These new measures will crack down on higher education providers that continue to offer poor quality courses and send a clear signal that we will not allow students to be sold a false promise.”
Baroness Alison Wolf, who was one of the panel members on the Augar review, said the “current meteoric growth” of foundation years courses was hard to justify financially or educationally.
“Aligning their fees explicitly with college-based access courses should also promote the greater alignment of further and higher education to which the government is, rightly, committed,” she said.
The government’s announcements are the latest in a series of attempts to better align skills development with workforce needs in the post-16 education system.
In 2021, it announced a Lifetime Skills Guarantee in a white paper designed to reform the post-16 education system and get employers more involved in developing courses.
Apprenticeship arrangements have come under fire since the apprenticeship levy was introduced in 2017, with research showing that only 4% of employers have used their full funding in the last five years, while thousands of students are dropping out of apprenticeship courses.
Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance
Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday
Shadow education secretary Bridget Philipson said the proposed changes were an “attack on the aspirations of young people”, and they would “make it harder for those in parts of our country with the fewest graduate jobs to get to university and get on”.
Recruitment and resourcing opportunities on Personnel Today
Browse more recruitment and resourcing jobs
